As I make a snack of the heqet’s axe, I step forward and raise my voice.

“I’m already angry at how you treat your own. Attack me again, and you won’t get off so easily.”

Immediately, he attacks with his remaining axe.

Really, I should have expected it. Threats are pointless against these people; I really need to figure out a better way to calm them down without having everything devolve into a fight.

The axe vaporises, joining its pair and leaving the heqet with nothing but the burnt stump of a handle. My flames spread around him immediately, reflexively going to burn the creature, but I pull back before the man suffers more than some first-degree burns. Leal is watching. Plus, we’re not here to fight and kill. Sparing the warrior — even if he’s obviously abusing his power over these people — is a good way to show we aren’t here to invade.

I burn through the air in the heqet’s lungs. He gasps, trying to suck in any amount to breathe, but I burn that too. The beings have a rather large set compared to the other intelligent races; likely to allow longer time underwater, or help their buoyancy. But I’m burning away that which is already in his lungs, so however long he might hold his breath is irrelevant; he passes out after only a dozen seconds of struggle.

The other heqet warrior that was watching over the field workers comes charging in with a war-cry, completely ignoring what I just did to his friend. Friend? Is it possible for heqet to be friends? Even Sylvan isn’t particularly sociable to any of his crew, and he’s the only one with some level of civility about him.

Before he can reach me, a gust of wind from Leal trips him. The heqet clumsily dives headfirst into the tar-pit, Leal only slightly adjusting his course away from solid ground.

I flash her a grin, but she avoids eye contact, scratching at the back of an ear. Feigning ignorance? Who is she trying to fool? I shake my head as I turn back to the gathering of villagers who’ve now stopped to watch on now that their two task-masters are indisposed.

They don’t attack, which is far better of a start than we’ve experienced with other heqet so far. Of course, their eyes follow us with a ravenous desire that isn’t particularly welcoming, but it’s better than immediate hostility.

The tar soaked warrior clambers out of the pit, but his gaze is as determined as before.

I steal his breath, too.

Despite the fallen heqet that had obviously been treating these people horribly, none spare the warriors more than a glance.

“Is there anyone here willing to talk?” I ask. “I would like someone to tell the warriors headed this way that we mean the village no harm, and are simply here to ask some questions.”

They look at me as if I’ve grown a second head. I guess that is a strange thing to say after I’ve just knocked out two of their warriors. None answer. Instead, they appear as if waiting for something. It becomes pretty clear what, when the sound of battle shouts rises from the village.

Down the hill, each ship has docked again, and along with those manning the cannons, they all rush between the cabins with their axes raised. There’s roughly thirty heqet charging to meet us. Amongst them, a couple take longer strides than the rest, but most appear of minimal enhancement.

“There’s no need for us to fight,” Leal says. I can hear a slight tone of pleading in her voice, but I’m not sure if I imagine it, as when I look over, her face is steadfast. “Trust me, this will not end well.”

Again, the heqet say nothing. In fact, most of them appear to get excited at her words. Is that what they want? Do they want to be free of the warriors here? Was Sylvan not lying about the tyranny of Jarl Anoures? Would killing the charging army be the better option?

I don’t know, but with Leal here, I want to avoid as much death as possible. Against people this weak, it’s not even a challenge.

Before they can come close enough to throw their axes and put my ursu friend in danger, I dash forward. Leal blasts my back with a gust that only helps me spread. My body splits, diffusing through their entire retinue. They swing their weapons, but it does nothing to me. My first action is to incinerate and consume each of their axes, leaving them unarmed.

Heqet start dropping. Unable to breathe, nor fight off the blaze that clings to them — yet doesn’t burn — one by one, they suffocate. This really is an effective way to fight. It’s not as quick as burning their bodies in an instant, but they get to keep their lives.

The few with at least some enhancement realise what is happening, and attempt to stop the flames from breaching their lungs by clamping shut their mouths and plugging their nostril holes with those bulbous fingertips of theirs. It looks uncomfortable.

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They push forward, trying to reach beyond my fire to where Leal stands. They don’t attack me. Maybe they think she’s the one causing this fire? I mean, those glowing markings of hers aren’t subtle, and anyone who isn’t familiar with the patterns or colour of each discipline likely couldn’t tell the difference between a fire mage and a wind one.

So unlike the warriors of the first Warring Isles battle I joined, these heqet do not know I’m a living being.

Not exactly unexpected. Áed are rare enough here. There’s no way they could have heard of those that have surpassed the binding threshold. Even Sylvan thinks I’m some sort of deity.

Unfortunately for the warriors within my grasp, I’m a lot more dangerous than some fire mage.

I incinerate their fingers, flow into their lungs and burn through all the air within. Soon, the enhanced warriors fall to the earth alongside their brethren.

I choose to take away their fingers, because I figure burning through their lips would be a lot more disfiguring.

Turning back, I find Leal with amber hyle flowing through her markings. Earth moulds to her will, climbing up the limbs of the two warrior heqet. A flash of the Anatla’s energy returns the markings to that of pressure and air. She stimulates the unconscious heqet’s airways, forcing their lungs to breathe.

As the pair gasp back to life — wheezing and struggling against their restraints — Leal shifts back to the earthen hyle, the momentary spread of energy returning to her shoulder. She strides toward me as I take shape among the many unconscious heqet, intent on replicating the effect on them.

She’s becoming increasingly proficient at alternating between professions. I’m glad it doesn’t appear to influence her memories as much as it once did — her innovative markings counteracting those changes — but the fact that it is a direct link to the Anatla still concerns me. I cannot deny its usefulness, but we still know so little about the Anatla and what they are capable of.

Behind Leal, the expressions of the villagers grow excited. At the downfall of their oppressors, vicious grins spread across many of their moist faces. I step forward, ready to address them, but those faces turn away from the downed warriors and land on us. They are excited, but there is not a grain of gratitude within their eyes.

I rush forward, my form spreading slightly at the speed at which I put myself between them and Leal. The first leaps forward without restraint. A mad glint to the heqet’s eye. My spear spins in my flames, slamming the blunt side down on the creature’s head with a crack, driving him to the ground.

“Wha—” Leal gasps, turning around as a wave of bodies now rush us down from the other side. She’s quick to react, and clear blue markings shine across her arms. A wave of water gushes from her arms, slamming into the leaping heqet and halting their momentum.

As the wave continues forth, flooding the earth beneath the crowd’s feet, her body flashes again, returning to an amber glow as divots of earth open beneath each heqet’s feet. The combination of water lapping at their lower bodies and lack of proper footing has them all stuck in moments. Different amber markings ignite across her body and the hard earth seems to lose its integrity, mixing easily with the water until the land is as difficult to move through as the tar-pit itself.

After a few moments flailing, the villager heqet pull their legs from the divots and wade through the mud. Their wide chests, along with semi-webbed hands and feet, allow them to move through the wet earth with less difficulty than I’d expect from non-enhanced.

“Solvei.” Leal’s voice is calm. Disciplined. Her dislike of fighting and death often makes me forget, but she spent quite some time in the army on battlefields. “Can you?” she asks as I watch mud slowly climb up each of the villagers.

There’s no need for elaboration. I spread my flames over the surface, baking the earth dry and hardening it around the unfortunate unenhanced. No need to even knock these heqet out to limit their movement. They lack the strength to break the hardened clay around them.

Despite their apparent weakness, the confines hardly stop their struggles and mad glares our way.

Leal turns away to restrain and resuscitate the warriors behind us. She shakes her head as she does. Is that disappointment? Frustration? I know I’m feeling as such. These people were being mistreated. I doubt that assumption is wrong; they had glared with hatred at the warriors. So why attack their saviours?

“Are you willing to speak now?” I ask, as I step up beside a villager with greying skin. Something I assume means the heqet is ageing. With the mucus coating their skin, I’ve yet to see one with wrinkles like albanics.

The man — what I think is a man — spits. My white flames flare. The large globule of saliva incinerates immediately, gone before it can come near. I’m hardly about to let such a disgusting thing hit me.

“We’re not here to fight you.” I try to get through to them, but none show any sign of backing down. Despite their defenceless circumstances.

“You should,” one snarls. “If you don’t kill us, we’ll slaughter you and your friend as soon as your back is turned.” His grin returns as he sneers the threat.

I narrow my eyes, but suppress my urge to burn him. My feet slide across the earth as I approach the speaker, not so much taking steps as my flames lick across the flash-cooked surface.

This heqet, while not showing a very friendly front, actually speaks. Compared to most others of his kind, that is far beyond the level of communication I’m usually given. Maybe we can work something out.

He is stuck in a rather awkward position, with his torso mostly above the hardened mud, but both hands and legs stuck completely. As I stop before him, he tries to tilt his eyes up to see me, but without a neck, he’s stuck looking at my feet and the butt of my spear.

“You could hack at me for as long as you’d like,” I say, crouching to meet his eye. “But nothing you do will hurt me.” My eyes burn with a bright white as I layer my voice with my presence.

The effort strikes him still. It strikes them all still. And yet he holds his glare through the instinctual locking of his body. I hoped that, against the weakest heqet, giving them a display of how completely outmatched they are would get them to back down. But this just proves that even those not part of the warriors are as unaffected by threats as them.

“Will you at least answer some questions if I promise to fight you after?”

More vaporising spittle is all the answer I receive. Yeah, should’ve known.